“Wait a bit,” interrupted Trevor, “you said tar and feathers. Where did you get the feathers?”
“We used leaves. They do just as well, and there were heaps on the bank. Well, when we landed, we tied up the boat, and bucked across to the Recreation Ground. We got over the railings—beastly, spiky railings—and went over to the statue. Ye know where the statue stands? It’s right in the middle of the place, where everybody can see it. Moriarty got up first, and I handed him the tar and a brush. Then I went up with the other brush, and we began. We did his face first. It was too dark to see really well, but I think we made a good job of it. When we had put about as much tar on as we thought would do, we took out the leaves-which we were carrying in our pockets-and spread them on. Then we did the rest of him, and after about half an hour, when we thought we’d done about enough, we got into our boat again, and came back.”
“And what did you do till half-past seven?”
“We couldn’t get back the way we’d come, so we slept in the boat-house.”
“Well—I’m—hanged,” was Trevor’s comment on the story.
Clowes roared with laughter. O’Hara was a perpetual joy to him.
As O’Hara was going, Trevor asked him for his gold bat.
“You haven’t lost it, I hope?” he said.
O’Hara felt in his pocket, but brought his hand out at once and transferred it to another pocket. A look of anxiety came over his face, and was reflected in Trevor’s.
“I could have sworn it was in that pocket,” he said.
“You haven’t lost it?” queried Trevor again.
“He has,” said Clowes, confidently. “If you want to know where that bat is, I should say you’d find it somewhere between the baths and the statue. At the foot of the statue, for choice. It seems to me—correct me if I am wrong—that you have been and gone and done it, me broth av a bhoy.”
O’Hara gave up the search.
“It’s gone,” he said. “Man, I’m most awfully sorry. I’d sooner have lost a ten-pound note.”
“I don’t see why you should lose either,” snapped Trevor. “Why the blazes can’t you be more careful.”
O’Hara was too penitent for words. Clowes took it on himself to point out the bright side.
“There’s nothing to get sick about, really,” he said. “If the thing doesn’t turn up, though it probably will, you’ll simply have to tell the Old Man that it’s lost. He’ll have another made. You won’t be asked for it till just before Sports Day either, so you will have plenty of time to find it.”
The challenge cups, and also the bats, had to be given to the authorities before the sports, to be formally presented on Sports Day.
“Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right,” said Trevor, “but I hope it won’t be found anywhere near the statue.”
O’Hara said he hoped so too.
IV. THE LEAGUE’S WARNING
The team to play in any match was always put upon the notice-board at the foot of the stairs in the senior block a day before the date of the fixture. Both first and second fifteens had matches on the Thursday of this week. The second were playing a team brought down by an old Wrykinian. The first had a scratch game.
When Barry, accompanied by M’Todd, who shared his study at Seymour’s and rarely left him for two minutes on end, passed by the notice-board at the quarter to eleven interval, it was to the second fifteen list that he turned his attention. Now that Bryce had left, he thought he might have a chance of getting into the second. His only real rival, he considered, was Crawford, of the School House, who was the other wing three-quarter of the third fifteen. The first name he saw on the list was Crawford’s. It seemed to be written twice as large as any of the others, and his own was nowhere to be seen. The fact that he had half expected the calamity made things no better. He had set his heart on playing for the second this term.